No Rain in Wonderland
by cold clouds
Summary: 'Reality is a lovely place and all, but I wouldn't ever want to live there' - Percabeth


**Hi, people of the internet! I've had ideas for this one-shot for ages and it was driving me crazy. Lots of fluff, thoughtful statements and MAJOR Percabeth.**

 **Disclaimer: No, I don't own pjo.**

 **Hope you guys enjoy,**

* * *

No Rain in Wonderland.

There was sunshine in my soul that day.

Percy's cabin was flooded with morning shadows, fresh new daylight cascading from between the curtains.

It was one of those winter mornings, all bitter and chilled and beautiful outside.

The sun rose late and left the frost to twinkle idly below. No warmth, just blinding white rays to pierce through the dappled blue sky.

Percy wasn't an early riser, but to be fair it was only six o'clock, and the rest of camp would have been quiet if not for the babbling brook and the rhythmic waves on the sea shore drawing back the tide.

He was still, for once. Almond eyes stitched shut with sleep.

Most people look years younger when they dream, but not Percy.

He looked serene and focused and strong, as heroic as he always was, someone I could trust with my life.

Maybe we look like who we really are when we're sleeping.

He shifted to turn over on his other side, lips lightly parted and…ew.

'Seaweed Brain!' I tugged out his pillow from under him and smacked his head with it. 'Get up! This is so gross, you're drooling everywhere!'

He sat up with a start, a halo of mussed charcoal tangles sticking up all around his face, eyes blown wide at the sting of sudden daylight.

'Annabeth!' He croaked, 'Why...?'

I crawled into bed beside him, ignoring his sleepy, sweaty state.

'I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. So I'm here now.'

He groaned slowly, 'You're like cold coffee in the mornings. You definitely wake me up, though.'

The fact that he managed to create a complete, coherent sentence this early amazed me.

'Are you calling me strange and disgusting, Jackson?'

He grinned, flopping back down on the bed and cuddling me close, 'But you have to be strange to be beautiful, Wise-Girl.'

I harrumphed in pretend annoyance. 'Shut up you sap.'

He snorted at my flushed face, 'So why couldn't you get to sleep?'

'I don't know,' I shrugged idly, 'I guess I just had nothing to dream about.'

'That's not how dreams work!' Percy rolled his eyes, dark green flashing dizzying blue as he was caught under the array of light pulsing through the window.

'Well I'm sorry!' I looked out from under my rainbow-singed eyelashes, bemused, 'I didn't realize it was so important to you!'

I sat up and leaned against the bed frame, looking down at his blanket-entwined limbs, 'Well how do you do it then, Mr. Dream Expert?'

I just imagine whatever,' he shrugged, 'I would say it's the best time to have brilliant ideas. Everything seems possible at night when the rest of the world is fast asleep and faraway.'

'Ideas? How could I create an organised idea in my mind without knowing any realistic statistics or having any outside inspiration-'

'It's not like that!' He moaned in exasperation, 'Dreams just happen! _All_ the best things in life just happen! You don't need to _know_ anything.'

'Wow, Seaweed-Brain,' A smile teased on my lips, 'you're so romantic! It's adorable.'

'Shut up Wise-Girl,' he grumbled under a thunder-cloud, 'I'm just saying, dreams are good because they're not real, but they seem to be. No one can stop you doing whatever you want to do inside your own head.'

'Surely it's better to do whatever you want to, only in the real world? It means more, then. If you could do it all here, why waste your time dreaming about it?'

'Well, there's just more barriers here, aren't there? More limits, more rules.'

' _Rules_ are what keeps us safe and balanced in society,' I countered.

'I guess so.' He sighed, 'Reality is a lovely place and all, but I wouldn't ever want to live there.'

My smile widened. 'You're unbelievable, Seaweed-Brain.'

His expression quickly matched mine, never unhappy for long.

'I can go anywhere, asleep in bed.'

'Really?' I quirked an eyebrow, 'So where do you go?'

'I don't know, everywhere.' Percy unravelled himself from his blankets, throwing them at me. 'I've lived in castles and fallen in love because I was taught to dream,' He charmingly kissed the tip of my freckled nose, impossible cheesy, 'Unlike _someone_.'

'Hey! I can dream! I've gone to a zillion places too.' I wriggled out of his burning embrace, bringing myself up to sit on the windowsill, 'The dream world is a wonderland, though.'

He shielded his eyes with his palm to look at me through the piercing light, 'Um, right. What do you mean?'

'I _mean_ , Seaweed-Brain, that it's all just so weird and big. That's _all_ it is.'

'That's why it's the perfect place for _you_ , and all your weird, big ideas!' I could hear the shining smile in his voice. What an idiot.

I had to laugh at his childlike expression. 'What are you staring at, Jackson?'

' _You_ , Wise-Girl,' He sat up on his knees, 'you look like an angel up there,'

I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. 'Oh my Gods, Percy! If you act like Prince Charming every morning, I'll be waking you up at six o'clock more often!'

'Please do,' the bed creaked underneath his weight as he stood up, slipping his hands on my hips. 'You're beautiful.'

'Not exactly an angel though, Seaweed-Brain. I'm pretty sure you need wings to be an angel.'

He scrunched up his eyebrows, flecks of sleep still evident in his glowing irises.

'You don't need wings to be an angel. You just have to be able to make people happy.'

I clung onto his shoulders and swung my legs around him like a monkey, nestling my head in the crook of his neck.

I couldn't think of anything else to say.

'Thank you, Seaweed-Brain,' I whispered. 'That was really sweet.'

* * *

'I HATE THIS SO MUUUUUCH!' I screamed as blades of freezing rain threatened to cut me down.

'ME TOOO!' Percy shouted next to me as we sprinted for cover under a chestnut tree.

Those stories you hear about people who were kept dry from a storm because they sheltered under a tree?

Complete and utter bald-headed, bare-faced LIES.

The rain slipped between the quivering leaves and dripped from the branches, and even the trunk was damp with slimy wet moss.

Percy looked soaked to the skin in snow-shine, he was so pale. I know for a fact I probably looked worse than he did, with my snotty nose and barely supressed shivering.

'Aren't you supposed to be the r-romantic one?' I hiccupped, 'And don't you love water? I thought people like you would like… d-dance in the rain or some crap like that.'

'Are you joking?' Percy hugged me so tightly I saw black spots flash. 'Urgh, you're so warm and I'm so cold. How come you're not cold, Annabeth?'

'I AM cold! I'm f-freezing!'

'But your body's boiling!' if possible, he hugged me tighter, trying to steal the body-heat I was radiating.

I was mostly grateful, because for me, Percy was like a hot water bottle, even though he was drenched to the bone.

Standing on my tip-toes, I leant up to taste his snow-shine kisses.

I cursed savagely under my breath, 'Great. We probably both have fevers now.'

That's what we got for running around in a winter storm fighting monsters for half an hour, wearing nothing but camp T-shirts and jeans.

The summery paradise that was Camp Half-Blood was only around a mile away, but I was honestly too cold to lift a blue finger, and Percy didn't seem to be any better.

I was so ready to disappear. Just to slip out of existence with Percy would be heaven right now.

It was all so loud around us. Thanks to Percy, my front half was achingly hot, but my exposed back was painfully cold as the worst of the storm hammered down.

'It would be so embarrassing to die here.' Percy sniffled, 'After surviving two great prophecies and crawling through Tartarus, of course we would end up dying _here,_ under a mile away from Camp with no monsters in sight, because of a _fever_.'

I slapped him upside the head with as much force as I could muster, which wasn't a lot.

'We're not going to die here, idiot. We're just going to have a disgusting cold for a few days and carry tissues with us everywhere for a while. It's not the end of the world, Hero. We've done that twice already.'

'Yeah.' a grin flickered back to life on his handsome face, eyes like the ocean frozen over. 'It's kind of getting old now, isn't it?'

I hummed in agreement, my hands still clutching fistfuls of his shirt.

'Is it just me or...?'

I glanced up at the broken skies, feeling the force of the wind less than before. The rain was dying down.

'Well, now that the rain's nearly all gone,' I said after a while, my voice sounding strange and too loud in my water-logged ears, 'we're alone again.'

'We can't be alone if we're together, Wise-Girl,' there was confusion in his tone.

'Being alone doesn't feel like this.'

I snuggled closer to him, the lingering cold sticking to me like a second skin.

As we made our way back to Camp along the little side-road, I caught sight of the unsettling tide, still restless after the storm.

It appeared to me as if the sky had just drowned in the sea.

All the grey rain and white lightning and glooming dark clouds were trapped underneath the churning surface, the storm continuing far below the waves in a whole other world.

Along the shore there were a few stragglers. Some looked frightened and dazed, others bewildered and relieved it was over. Either way, no one had anyone to say anything to. They stood apart from eachother, shaking with shared shock.

'All the lonely people,' I mused, 'where did they come from?'

Percy said nothing for a minute, but kept his arm around my waist, locking us together.

'People are only what they believe they can be. I think that's the problem for lonely people, they haven't been to Wonderland.'

'I guess,' I drawled, 'instead they're stuck here in reality, with all the rain and the thunder.'

'You know, I don't think it can rain in dreams.'

I rolled my eyes, 'how could you possibly know what other people dream of?'

The faint freckles around his eyes became obvious as he blushed hotly. Whether it was from the fever or from embarrassment, I wasn't too sure, 'I just like to think I do, sometimes. I don't know!'

' _Of course_ , Mr Dream Expert.' I snickered, 'Only _you_ would know there's no rain in Wonderland.'

He muttered something under his breath before nudging me hard in the ribs.

'You're mean, Wise-Girl.'

I let out a ringing laugh that echoed off the shiny, newly wet pavements, 'I'm sorry Seaweed-Brain. I like that you're a dreamer. It makes you more exciting. I never know what crazy thing you're going to say next.'

'Which is it, am I crazy or exciting?'

'Both, idiot.' Without thinking, I wiped my dripping nose on his sleeve.

'Oh my Gods!' He jumped back, startled, looking at me with betrayal in his eyes, 'you're SICK.'

I couldn't stop laughing, partly in humiliation, partly in amusement as he danced around, eyes darting between his sleeve and me, horrified.

'That was SO, so weird! You're disgusting, Annabeth!'

'Like cold coffee in the morning?' I smiled sweetly, despite my snotty nose and sticky, sweaty red face.

Yup, not my best moment.

His grossed-out expression quickly turned to one of hilarity, as he chuckled at my embarrassment.

'Wow, I'm _such_ a weirdo,' I groaned, 'am I really disgusting?'

Percy blinked, 'Annabeth, _I'm joking_. Things would be very different if you could see how good you looked through my eyes.'

'We're always trying to do that though,' I worried my lip, a ponderous look overcoming me, 'to see ourselves through everyone else's eyes.'

' _I'm_ not!' Percy grinned mischievously, pressing his cheek against mine, 'Yours is the only opinion of me that matters, Wise-Girl.'

'You sir, are _sickeningly_ sweet. Shut up and let me think! I wonder, is the only time we can truly see ourselves when we look in a mirror?'

Percy hummed in thought, 'I don't really know the answer to that, Wise-Girl. I mean, I don't think even a mirror would show you who you really are, if it's not what you want to see.'

I frowned. How would Percy have come up with that?

'Did you get that from a quote off the internet or what?'

'Maybe,' we stumbled past Thalia's Tree and into the summery haze of Camp Half-Blood, 'the point is, if you never see yourself in any way other than through other people's eyes, then I want you to always remember how I see you.'

'So what is _that_? A sick, disgusting weirdo or a beautiful angel, Seaweed-Brain? You never made it clear.'

'You're like cold-coffee in the morning, Wise-Girl, but the rest of the time, you're an absolute Wonderland. I don't ever want to stop getting lost with you.'

The winter sun was wonderfully bright.

'Well in that case,' I interlocked our fingers as we ditched camp activities just to wander alone together, 'looks like it's time for tea.'

* * *

 **Yeah, I know that was so gushy and over-romantic. I'm just having one of those really intense Percabeth-shipping days, you feel me?**

 **Please leave a review, I love knowing what you guys think!**

 **-Cat**


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